What Is The Difference Between A Psychic And A Climate Science Denier?

What is the difference between a psychic and a climate science denier? The answer might surprise you.

The question popped out of my head while it was exploding from this jaw-dropping story: “CNN’s Sister Network Asks Psychic To Explain What Happened To Missing Malaysia Jet!”

Yes, HLN put a psychic, Lisa Williams, on the same panel as CNN’s aviation analyst, an actual 777 pilot! Now that gives a whole new meaning to false balance. Williams believes the plane has crashed with survivors. HLN wonders why she would take that view when she doesn’t have “hard concrete evidence.”

“Naturally, I don’t have hard, concrete evidence. I think any psychic who has hard, concrete evidence can’t do their job correctly…. They’ll just work off what they know. I tend to work off what I don’t know.”

“I tend to work off what I don’t know” — that could be the denier mantra.

Asked to comment on the psychic’s theory, the pilot says — without “disparaging Lisa’s profession” — he is a pilot, he deals “in black and white” so he finds it “difficult in this particular circumstance to think that a psychic could solve a problem that people all over the world are not able to solve at this point.”

Why not? If some blogger or fossil fuel-funded hack can call the work of the entire scientific community a hoax, why can’t a psychic find a plane the rest of the world can’t.

“I do believe that it actually crashed, and I see a lot of trees,” the psychic declared. “I think there is a larger organization behind this that is leading us off track with this debris. So therefore it’s all kept hush-hush.” This is pretty much the plot of the TV series Lost, but who’s to say J. J. Abrams isn’t a psychic himself?

I know what the similarities are between psychics and deniers. They both use unscientific methods, generally make stuff up with no evidence to support their views, and have consistently been debunked when scrutinized.

What is the difference between a psychic and a climate science denier? In fairness, psychics sometimes guess the right answer.